DMB #7 in Ticket Sales for 2003

By Waldo Jaquith
The annual rankings are in, and Dave Matthews Band is ranked as the #7 highest-grossing touring musical act in the country for 2003, with ticket sales of $52M, which is the same dollar value of last year's ticket sales. They have fallen slightly in the rankings, though, having been #5 last year. They came in behind the Rolling Stones ($300M), Bruce Springsteen ($182M), Cher ($76M), Fleetwood Mac ($69M), Dixie Chicks ($62M), and The Eagles ($54M). They also failed to retain their position as the world's most popular band: although they came in at #1 with 1.4M tickets sold last year, the Rolling Stones came out on top this time around, with an impressive 3.4M tickets sold. Note that these figures include only the summer's 55 Dave Matthews Band performances (22 less shows than they played last year), and not the 13 Dave and Tim shows in spring or the currently-underway Dave and Friends tour, which includes 8 shows before the end of the year.